Friday, January 29 - Sunday, January 31

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 2. The Week 2 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 2 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. If you do not finish them on Friday, you will need to make sure you finish them over the weekend.

Winter weather. For those of you who are living in Norman, winter weather has closed the campus for Friday. For this class, thank goodness, you don't have to worry about driving on icy roads to get to campus for a class meeting! If the weather does end up causing you some inconvenience and you miss some assignments (power outage, etc.), that's okay - there is lots of extra credit to make up anything that you might miss because of the weather. That's what the extra credit is there for! So, try to work ahead so that you are not facing the pressure of due dates and deadlines - and if you do end up missing some assignment(s), you can use extra credit to make up the missing points, no problem. Where I live, the winter weather will not arrive until Friday night, so I should be online as usual during the day on Friday.

Working ahead. With campus closed and classes canceled on Friday, for some of you this may turn out to be a convenient time to work ahead in the class. Plus, in addition to working ahead, I would like to encourage everybody to be doing some kind of extra credit to build up some extra points. That way if you miss some assignments in the weeks to come, you won't even have to worry about it. If you want to pile up a lot of extra credit at the beginning of the semester, before you get busy in your other classes, that is a great idea! Then, if you end up having to miss some assignments in this class later on, such as during midterms, that won't be a problem.

Week 2 Read and Respond (blog comment) assignment. The Week 2 blog commenting assignment is available now! Make sure you check your groups; there has been a bit of shuffling based on class add/drops. You will probably see the same people you did last time, but check the group listing to make sure. I'll probably keep these same groups for another couple of weeks, and then shuffle things around! :-)

Storybook assignments. If you want to receive comments from me about a Storybook assignment before the weekend, please turn it in by noon on Friday. I always do my best to read and reply on Friday afternoon to all the assignments turned in before noon. If you turn in an assignment on after noon on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday, I'll be updating the list again on Monday. So, on Monday morning, you can check the list of assignments in the Stack and you'll be able to make sure I received your assignment; I'll then start reading through the assignments in the order received to send you back comments. Please do NOT go on to the next Storybook assignment until you get comments back from me about the assignment you have turned in. (So, if you are waiting on my comments on Storybook Week 2, don't go on to the Week 3 Storybook assignment yet; if you are waiting on my comments on Storybook Week 3, don't go on to the Week 4 Storybook assignment yet, etc.)

Refund reminder: Monday is the last day for refund. For those of you who are still deciding whether or not you want to stay in the class, Monday, February 1, is when you need to make that decision. You can still drop on Monday and get a full refund. After Monday, you can drop the class with a W on your transcript, but the university will be keeping your money.

Saturday, January 30: Assassination of Gandhi. On January 30 in 1948, Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated. The image below shows the memorial in New Delhi where Gandhi's body was cremated. Written on the stone you can see what were reportedly Gandhi's last words: "Hey Ram" (Oh Rama!) - his invocation of the god Rama will definitely mean something to the students in the Indian Epics class. Although it is a matter of some controversy as to whether those were Gandhi's last words, here is something he wrote in December 1947, just weeks before his assassination: "In the end it will be as Rama commands me. Thus I dance as He pulls the strings. I am in His hands and so I am experiencing ineffable peace." If you look closely at the photograph, you will see the words written in Devanagari script, gold letters on the black stone, just behind the burning stick of incense:

Thursday, January 28

Today is Thursday of WEEK 2 of the class. For those of you in Myth-Folklore or World Lit, Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday. (Indian Epics has no Wednesday assignments.)

SNOW. For those of you who are living in Norman, it looks like winter weather is on the way (where I live, the snow will not be arriving until the weekend). For this class, thank goodness, you don't have to worry about driving on icy roads to get to campus for a class meeting. If the weather does end up causing you some inconvenience that means you miss some assignments (power outage, etc.), that's okay - there is lots of extra credit to make up anything that you might miss because of the weather. That's what the extra credit is there for! So, try to work ahead so that you are not facing the pressure of due dates and deadlines - and if you do end up missing an assignment or two, you can use extra credit to make up the missing points, no problem.

Week 2 Read and Respond (blog comment) assignment. The Week 2 blog commenting assignment is not available yet; it will be available starting on Friday. The blog commenting assignment is the only assignment you cannot complete early, because people will still be adding posts to their blog today, Thursday. So, after midnight tonight, that is, at 12:01AM on Friday, you can do that Read and Respond assignment; you have Friday, Saturday and Sunday to finish that assignment, where you will be reading some more blog posts at random from people in your assigned blog group. Make sure you check your groups; there has been a bit of shuffling based on class add/drops. You will probably see the same people you did last time, but check the group listing to make sure.

Storybook Stack. I've still got a few Storybook assignments in the Storybook stack (you can check the contents of the stack here). If you turned something in on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turn in your assignment on Monday or later, it is probably still in the stack, but I will be sure to get comments back to you today, Thursday. If you want comments back on a Storybook assignment before the weekend, make sure to get it turned in by Friday at noon. My goal every week is to clear out the Storybook stack before the end of the day on Friday - and if you want comments back on Friday, make sure to get your Storybook assignment turned in either on Thursday or before noon on Friday.

Monday, February 1: Final day to drop with refund. Monday, February 1, will be the final day to drop a class and get a full refund. So, if you are finding out that this class does not fit into your schedule after all, or that the workload is too demanding, you can still drop the class and get a refund. The Week 2 assignments will give you a sense of what the regular weekly assignments will be like for the rest of the semester, so you will have a good basis on which to make your decision. If you have any questions about the class you'd like to ask before you make your decision, let me know!

January 28: William Butler Yeats. Today, January 28, marks the anniversary of the death of the great Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, who died on this day in the year 1939. You can read more about Yeats' life and career in this Wikipedia article. Those of you in the World Lit. or Myth-Folklore course may have encountered William Butler Yeats in your research for the class so far, because Yeats was a crucial figure in the revivial of Irish popular culture in the 19th century and you can find many of his works online at the Sacred Texts Archive. The image below shows Yeats' gravestone in a cemetery in Drumcliff, County Sligo, Ireland; the simple inscription - "Cast a cold Eye / On Life, on Death. / Horsemen pass by!" - was what Yeats himself asked to have carved on the stone.

Wednesday, January 27

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 2 of the class. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

My Wednesday schedule. I do most of my work during regular business hours on Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday, while scheduling my out-of-office commitments on Wednesdays. This Wednesday I will probably be away from my desk in the late morning and early afternoon. That means I may be a bit more slow to respond to your emails on Wednesday than on the other days of the week - but if you send me an email during the day on Wednesday, I'll definitely get back to you by the end of the day.

Storybook Stack. I'm still making my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment before 10PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me. If you turned in an assignment after 10PM on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. Remember: save the emails I send you back about your Storybook assignments. My comments are marked with ==> in the body of the email, and you will need those comments when you go on to the next week's assignment. I promise to reply to everybody by the end of the week - but when you turn in an assignment on Sunday or later, the stack is very big, and it takes me all week sometimes to get through it.

Image files and webpages. Especially for those of you using Composer to publish webpages this week, it is VERY IMPORTANT for you to resize the image if you are starting with a super-huge image file, like the kind of image file you might have from your own digital camera. You have a very limited amount of webspace provided by OU and a single humongous image can use up half or more of your allotted space. You can get extra credit for learning how to resize images - it's a Tech Tip! :-)

January 27: Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day of January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, has been designated by the United Nations and many other countries as a day in remembrance of those who died in the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. The person I hold in my special remembrance for this day is Janusz Korczak (Wikipedia), a visionary educator of the 20th century, who organized the Jewish orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1942, the Nazis raided the orphanage and sent the children to the death camp at Treblinka. Although Korczak's Polish friends begged him to escape and hide with them for the rest of the war (Korczak was a famous radio celebrity in Poland before the war), he would not leave the children, and died together with them at Treblinka. This image from shows the Yad Vashem Memorial for Korczak and his children:

Tuesday, January 26

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 2 of the class. I've moved the Week 2 Quizzes and Declarations to the TOP of the list now. This week in Indian Epics you are starting Narayan's Ramayana, while it's Buddhist Jataka Tales in the World Literature class, and it's Ancient Near East week in Myth-Folklore. I really hope you will enjoy the readings!

Storybook Stack. A very large number of Storybook assignments came in over the weekend, and I've been reading through those in the order that they came in. If you turned in a Storybook assignment before Sunday at 6PM, you should have comments back from me, with points recorded for you in the Gradebook (check and make sure!). If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday morning, it is probably still in the stack waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. If you want comments back sooner on your Storybook, turn it in before Sunday! If you turn your assignment in on Friday or Saturday, you will get comments back more quickly than if you wait until Sunday evening to do the assignment.

Storybook Comments via email. When I send back Storybook comments to you via email, you will see that my comments are inserted into your email, and are marked with ==> to make them easy to find. READ THESE COMMENTS. The comments for each week should help you when you do your assignment for the next week, and possibly in future weeks, too, so make sure you save the emails that I send back to you about your Storybook assignment so that you can consult them later as needed.

Tech Tip emails. Until I get through the Storybook stack, I won't be responding to all the Tech Tip emails, but I'll get to that later in the week, I promise. Meanwhile, please feel free to go ahead and do more Tech Tips if you want. You certainly don't need to wait on my reply to your latest Tech Tip email for you to go ahead and do more of them. :-)

Myth-Folklore: Gilgamesh OR Egypt. (REPEAT ANNOUNCEMENT) Those of you who are in the Myth-Folklore class will have a choice of readings each week. This week, the choice is between Gilgamesh OR Egypt. You will do only one set of readings, and take the background quiz and reading quiz based on your choice of Gilgamesh OR Egypt. This means that will end up with some blank items in the Gradebook; please don't worry about that. Your goal is to get 30 points per week, and if you do the quizzes for just one of the reading selections, you will end up with the points you need.

January 26: Republic Day honors Sundarlal Bahuguna. On this day in 1950, the Indian Constitution came into force, making India officially a "Republic," and so January 26 is celebrated as "Republic Day" in India. You can read more about the holiday at Wikipedia. Each year on Indian Republic Day, heroes of the nation are celebrated. One of the heroes who has been honored as a hero of the nation on this day is the environmental activist, Sundarlal Bahuguna, a member of the Chipko movement fighting to preserve the forests in the Himalayas. The image shows Sundarlal Bahuguna standing in front of a painting that depicts his meeting with the Dalai Lama (source):

Monday, January 25

Today is Monday, and Week 1 of the class is now over. Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the Week 1 assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

Monday: Time to work ahead. You do not have any assignments due on Monday, which makes it the PERFECT chance to work ahead on the Week 2 assignments. Believe me: if you put off the assignments in this class until the day that they are due, you are going to be under a lot of stress. If you can work at your own pace just a day or two ahead of the deadlines, you will find the class much easier to manage!

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the weekend or on Monday morning - the Week 1 Storybook assignments from Myth-Folklore and World Lit., plus early Week 2 and Week 3 assignments from all three classes. The first thing I will do on Monday morning when I get to work is to update the list of items in the Storybook stack. So, after 8 a.m. or so on Monday, you will be able to check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I will then start reading the assignments in the order they were turned in. For those of you who are working ahead: please do not go on to the Week 3 Storybook assignment until you get Week 2 comments back from me. Thanks for your patience with that!

Myth-Folklore: Gilgamesh OR Egypt. Those of you who are in the Myth-Folklore class will have a choice of readings each week. This week, the choice is between Gilgamesh OR Egypt. You will do only one set of readings, and take the background quiz and reading quiz based on your choice of Gilgamesh OR Egypt. You will end up with some blank items in the Gradebook; please don't worry about that. Your goal is to get 30 points per week, and if you do the quizzes for just one of the reading selections, you will end up with the points you need.

January 25: Burns Night. Every year, on January 25, the great Scottish poet is celebrated by people all over the world, gathering together to drink and toast one another and to read some of Burns's marvelous poetry! You can read about the tradition of the "Burns Night" or "Burns Supper" in this Wikipedia article. I love to celebrate Burns Night... but we do not have a haggis at our house! (Those of you who have had haggis may understand why: here is what a haggis is). You can find the poetry of Robert Burns online at the RobertBurns.org website. He is most famous as the author of the words to "Auld Lang Syne" - and the famous phrase "of mice and men" comes from his marvelous poem, "To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough." You can read more about Robert Burns in this Wikipedia article, which is also the source for his portrait shown here: